As­pir­ing nurses flock to UBH af­ter fake ad­vert

SCORES of as­pir­ing nurses were turned away by of­fi­cials at the United Bu­l­awayo Hos­pi­tals (UBH) af­ter they tried to sub­mit ap­pli­ca­tions fol­low­ing a fake ad­ver­tise­ment that has been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia.

The fake ad­vert, which had been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia in the past two weeks, called for those in­ter­ested in en­rolling for a Diploma in Gen­eral Nurs­ing to ap­ply for the 2017 in­take be­fore Novem­ber 28, 2016.

Ac­cord­ing to the fake ad­vert, the hospi­tal would select stu­dents for the Jan­uary, May and Septem­ber 2017 in­takes.

UBH chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Mrs Nonhlanhla Ndlovu con­firmed the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day, say­ing a num­ber of peo­ple fell prey to the hoax while others had been phon­ing to ver­ify the au­then­tic­ity of the ad­vert.

“I’m aware that there’s an ad­vert that has been cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia call­ing on peo­ple to ap­ply for en­rol­ment at the UBH School of Nurs­ing. Peo­ple were phon­ing to find out if it was true but others ap­plied and were turned away when they tried to sub­mit their ap­pli­ca­tions.

“I’m not sure how many peo­ple came to the hospi­tal be­cause most of them go straight to the Hu­man Re­sources De­part­ment but quite a num­ber came to­day be­cause the fake ad­vert had in­di­cated Novem­ber 28 as the dead­line for sub­mis­sion,” said Mrs Ndlovu.

She said the hospi­tal had al­ready en­rolled stu­dents for the 2017 in­take and would ad­ver­tise next year for the 2018 in­take.

Mrs Ndlovu ad­vised mem­bers of the pub­lic to ver­ify such in­for­ma­tion with the hospi­tal be­fore ap­ply­ing, adding that the hospi­tal ad­ver­tises of­fi­cially in news­pa­pers.

“As­pir­ing nurses should look out for ad­verts in The Her­ald, The Chron­i­cle, The Sun­day Mail and The Sun­day News. Any­thing re­lat­ing to the hospi­tal cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia is a hoax and should be ig­nored,” she said.

Some of the peo­ple who went to the hospi­tal with their ap­pli­ca­tions said they were shocked when the hospi­tal au­thor­i­ties told them that the ad­vert was a hoax.

“I re­ceived the ad­vert from a friend on What­sapp last week. It looked au­then­tic. I pre­pared my ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore tak­ing it to the hospi­tal. I found scores of peo­ple wait­ing at the ad­min­is­tra­tion and joined them.

“I was shocked when in a few min­utes, a lady told us that she was not tak­ing our en­velopes be­cause the School of Nurs­ing had not called for ap­pli­ca­tions,” said Ms Fisokuhle Ncube.

She said the woman said they had been turn­ing away peo­ple for the past two weeks fol­low­ing the cir­cu­la­tion of the ad­vert on so­cial me­dia.

“We stood in front of her in shock and she told us not to leave our en­velopes be­cause she would burn them. As we left the hospi­tal, more peo­ple car­ry­ing en­velopes kept on com­ing and hop­ing that their en­velopes would be ac­cepted,” said Ms Ncube.

An­other “ap­pli­cant” Ms Dalubuhle Mabuya said the per­son who in­vented the ad­vert copied the tra­di­tional UBH ad­vert and sim­ply changed the dates.

“We can all be for­given for think­ing the ad­vert was real be­cause it was writ­ten in a pro­fes­sional man­ner and had the in­for­ma­tion re­quired by an ap­pli­cant,” said Ms Mabuya. — @pame­lashumba1

Ram­pant cut­ting down of trees has re­sulted in se­ri­ous ero­sion and land degra­da­tion in some parts of the coun­try. The pic­ture taken re­cently in Jot­sholo, Lu­pane East, shows a se­ries of gul­lies which will soon be wors­ened by the rains as the wet sea­son pro­gresses.— (Pic­ture by Eliah Saushoma)